1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of stationery, books, office and school products generally. More specifically the present invention relates to a notebook having a plurality of pages forming a pad and bound together at a page binder edge by a ring or spiral binder, and having a cover constructed to permit the sequential passage of the forward-most, or first page through a slot in or beside the cover to become the last page in the pad. The rotated page becomes the last page in the pad, rather than merely a folded back first page, because no part of the cover or binder extends between the rotated first page and the remainder of the pad. First page rotation exposes and causes the second page to become the first page, which may then be rotated to the back of the pad to expose and cause the next page to become the first page. This page rotation may be performed indefinitely.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have long been notebooks including note pads for containing a series of bound pages and arranged so that each page can be folded behind the pad after use. A problem with these prior pads has been that the cover must be folded behind the pad, and then pages folded behind the cover, so that pages rotated behind the pad are obstructed by the cover or other notebook parts from rejoining the pad. Then, to close the notebook so that the cover is exposed outside the pad, the used pages must be folded back on top of unused pages. As a result, when the user wishes to begin writing on the next available page, he or she must flip past all the used pages to reach it.
Holton, U.S. Pat. No. 703,260, issued on Jun. 24, 1902, discloses a tablet including a stack of writing sheets and a one piece binder in the form of two spaced apart binder rings interconnected by a connecting rod. The rings have flat back portions to rest on a table and curved front portions around which the sheets are rotated after use. The sheets cannot rotate all the way around the rings to reach the back of the stack, however, because the ring connecting rod would stop them.
Hackmann, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 808,652, issued on Jan. 2, 1906, teaches a note book having a binder similar to that of Holton. Two circular binder rings are interconnected by a straight rod portion, which would prevent full sheet rotation just as in Holton.
Thaw, U.S. Pat. No. 3,108,823, issued on Oct. 29, 1963 for a paper securement device, includes binder rings mounted onto a backboard which can be opened to load and reload paper. Pianta, U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,410, issued on Dec. 16, 1980 reveals a stationary booklet having cardboard covers and a refillable binder made up of tubular rings passing through slots in the cover and sheets, which can be split longitudinally and reconnected. Zane, U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,486, issued on Apr. 2, 1996, discloses a notebook and notebook cover assembly. None of these devices appear to permit the full rotation of sheets from the front to the back of a pad.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a notebook including a pad of writing pages having a pad cover which permits sequential rotation of the forward most page past the cover to the back of the pad, to become the last page in the pad, so that the next page to be used is always the first page in the notebook.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a notebook which permits such forward most page rotation without removal of the pad cover.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a conventional notebook with a cover conversion kit including means for existing cover removal and at least one replacement cover having the characteristics of the present invention covers to permit forward most page rotation, past the cover to the back of the pad.
It is finally an object of the present invention to provide such a notebook which is simple in design and inexpensive to manufacture.